Tutorials

11 March, 2025

International Art & Found Day 2025

beckarahn2025-03-11T11:01:26-05:00An Artist's Life, Freebies & Patterns|2 Comments

One of my goals for my business this year was to “Bring more joy.” and tomorrow’s project is going to do exactly that. I am participating in International Art & Found Day, a day when thousands of artworks from artists all over the world will be placed within their local communities for neighboring residents to find. #artandfoundday

I found out about this from a follow artist friend and it happens to land on my Dad’s birthday. What better way to celebrate (since my dad is also an artist) than to share some art out in the world. And when I read the history of the project, the reason that the founder chose March 12 is because it was her dad’s birthday too.

The idea is that artists package up any kind of art and put it out in the world for others to find. Tomorrow is supposed to be pretty nice weather, so I am going to take a walk and put things in my neighborhood. I will be sharing photos on my Instagram, kind of like a scavenger hunt.

According to the website right now, there are 1600+ artists participating from 47 different countries. That link will let you check the map and see if there is some art happening near you. If not, I am ALSO going to hide a couple of photos on my website for a virtual art drop on Wednesday March 12. If you find one of those photos and email me a screen shot I will send you an art drop surprise.

What art am I going to share? I always make a sample along with my students when I teach a class so I have all kinds of cute felt animals: frogs, sheep, toucans, cats, dogs. I have more samples than I will ever need so I am really excited to share these and send them off to new homes.

19 February, 2025

Preventing and Untying Knots in your Embroidery

beckarahn2025-02-19T11:37:22-06:00Embroidery, Tutorials|Comments Off on Preventing and Untying Knots in your Embroidery

One of the most frustrating things about hand embroidery is when your thread ties itself in knots while you are stitching. I thought I would write a couple of tips to help prevent knots and how to untie them when they happen.

Preventing Knots

After you have threaded your needle, take a few seconds to “condition the thread”. That means pinching the eye of the needle so that it doesn’t come unthreaded and then running the length of the thread through your fingers a few times while you pull on it gently. What does conditioning do? It helps to push some extra twist out of your thread. Less twist means fewer knots.

As you stitch, some stitch movements can build up extra twist in your thread, especially with stitches that wrap around themselves, like french knots or twisted chain. Keep an eye on the extra thread as you stitch. If you see it start to twist back on itself, that is a knot waiting to happen. You can let go of extra twist by picking up your work and dropping the needle, allowing the extra twist to spin the needle around and fall out of the thread. Then you can go back to stitching.

Untying Knots

The most common kind of knot to get while you are stitching is a slip knot. They happen when the thread starts to twist up and a loop slips through another one. When you see a knot starting, the best thing to do is stop stitching and don’t pull it tighter.

A slip knot looks like a loop with a knot at the base of it and you will see two “legs” coming out of the bottom. If you pull on one side, the knot will tighten up, but if you pull on the other side, the knot will unravel easily. It’s hard to tell which side is which by just looking at it because it’s all based on how your thread twisted, but a gentle tug on each leg will usually show you how to loosen it. If you accidentally pull it too tight and nothing is slipping loose, you can sometimes unravel it by slipping your needle into the knot part and wiggling it around a little to loosen it up and allow the threads to slip.

13 February, 2025

Picot Beaded Edge: A Micro Tutorial

beckarahn2025-02-13T14:41:28-06:00Tutorials|3 Comments

I learned how to stitch this picot beaded edge from a friend a bunch of years ago and one of my students in class reminded me about it today, so I thought I’d make a very quick micro tutorial and show you how it works.

First you need some beads, needle, thread, and something to stitch the edging on. For this example, I made a heart shape from two layers of felt. You can stitch around anything, but a circle is the easiest shape to start with if you’ve never tried this before. I am stitching with #8 perle cotton embroidery thread, a chenille needle (which is my favorite for embroidery) and some size 8 seed beads. This works with almost any kind of beads, but you just have to make sure that they fit over your needle and thread at least twice.

Thread your needle and tie a knot. I start by making a stitch between the two layers of felt so that I can hide the knot inside.

For your very first stitch, you will pick up 3 beads on the needle. Then move over about two-beads-width and make a stitch through the layers of felt from back to front. You want to stitch in about 1/16th of an inch from the cut edge of the felt.
Pass your needle through the last bead again from bottom to top.
For the rest of the picot stitches, you will add 2 beads to the needle. Then stitch through the layers of felt once again about 2 beads width away from your previous stitch.
Continue in the same pattern by bringing your needle up again through the last bead.

Once you’ve worked around the outside of your shape, continue adding picots until you meet up at your starting stitch.

To join the last stitch, add just one bead and then go back through the very first bead of the first stitch from top to bottom.

Make a tiny stitch and tie a knot right at the base of that bead and then you can bring the thread through the felt layers to bury the end and trim it off.

23 October, 2024

Tutorial: Leaf printing with Bleach

beckarahn2024-10-23T13:51:06-05:00Tutorials|1 Comment

I had kind of a quiet weekend and decided that was a great excuse to play with something fun. My sister sent me a TikTok video of someone printing leaves on a sweatshirt with bleach. It was more a “performance” than really a tutorial, so I used what I know about discharge or bleach dyeing and made myself a shirt. I walked over the nearby craft store and got a couple of cotton t-shirts in nice autumn colors. On the way back, I collected a big handful of maple leaves. I pressed these under a heavy book while I ate lunch so that they would be as flat as possible for printing.

Instead of using liquid bleach, I used Soft Scrub with bleach, which is like a thick paste, and a 1 inch flat brush. (You could also use the gel version.) I tucked a piece of cardboard inside the shirt to keep the bleach from soaking through. I laid each leaf on a piece of aluminum foil and painted the back side with a generous layer of soft scrub. Then I flipped it over and pressed it onto the shirt. I put gloves on for this step because I know my hands would itch all afternoon if I covered them in cleanser. I was careful to press all around the edges of the leaf to make sure I got that maple leaf outline. I let the leaves sit on the shirt for about half an hour for the bleach to do its thing.

You never know what color bleach will come out on colored fabrics. My olive green shirt bleached to a great apricot orange color! The orange shirt didn’t work quite as well and I have a couple of theories about that. First the orange was a lighter, heathered color with more polyester and so there might have not been as much color there to react to the bleach. Second I noticed that my soft scrub was drying out quickly on a warm windy day and so it wasn’t nearly as wet when I got to painting on to the leaves for the second shirt. That may have made the bleach less effective. This photo was the shirts after I had peeled off the leaves and the softscrub was basically dry. When I was done, I put the shirts into the washer and dryer to rinse out any extra soft scrub. It was a quick, fun project and I got a great t-shirt that I wore this week. If you try it out, send me a photo!

19 February, 2024

A Mini Tutorial: Spoonflower’s New Proofing Tool

beckarahn2024-02-19T15:33:07-06:00Spoonflower & Fabric Design, Tutorials|Comments Off on A Mini Tutorial: Spoonflower’s New Proofing Tool

Spoonflower recently introduced a new proofing tool that works right in your Design Library. I think it’s great! I made a mini tutorial video to show you how it works.

27 July, 2023

Wonder what to do with Spoonflower Wallpaper Swatches? Make a book!

beckarahn2023-07-27T17:22:49-05:00Spoonflower & Fabric Design, Tutorials|1 Comment

I made a handful of these for holiday and graduation gifts this year and I wanted to share this fun idea! I ordered a swatch of Spoonflower’s peel-and-stick wallpaper a few weeks ago because I am thinking of updating a backsplash behind the stove in my kitchen. It’s currently wallpapered in peel-and-stick, which I did about 4 years ago and it looks awesome, but I wanted to change it up for something different. So, I ordered a swatch of this design by red_tansy but as soon as I got the swatch I realized the scale was too large for my tiny space. So I ordered another in a smaller scale.

But what to do with this leftover swatch? The answer for me is to make a book! I learned to make coptic sketchbooks a little more than a year ago at a class at the MN Center for Book Arts. I fell in love. These are fast to make and I love the exposed stitching on the binding. In our class, we tore the paper down from larger sheets which gives the pages a torn organic edge, which I also think is so pretty. I love all of the “imperfections” that make these really look handmade. I’m going to start teaching these as a class soon, but if you are interested in making a sketchbook like this, check out StoneBurnerBooks on YouTube. Her tutorials are fantastic.

The paper I have for the inside pages tears down beautifully to make pages for a book that is 4×5 inches, which is a nice pocket size. That also means that you need just a piece of wallpaper 5×12 inches to make the covers, which you can get easily from a 12×24 wallpaper swatch. The peel-and-stick wallpaper is durable and water resistant, which is ideal for a book cover. I know this is going to hold up to use.

If you’ve used Spoonflower’s peel-and-stick wallpaper in the past, they’ve got a new substrate in the last year and it’s very different than the previous one. I love it. Get a swatch! The new wallpaper takes a crease better and it is stickier than the previous version. It’s still removable if you use it on the wall, but that makes it even more usable for craft projects like this. Which is the way I use it most often.

I made the covers from a lighter weight book board and wrapped the outside in peel-and-stick wallpaper. For the inside endpapers, I used a scrap of gelli plate printed paper that I just made in another class. The colors were so perfect when I saw it on the table that I had to choose it. The PVA glue I used for the endpapers sticks nicely to the wallpaper, so you don’t have to worry about it peeling up from that slightly glossy wallpaper surface. I let the glue dry overnight under weight to make sure the boards did not warp, but the whole book went together in just a couple of hours.

When I made these for holiday & graduation gifts, I scaled down several of my own designs on Spoonflower so they would be the right scale for a small book cover like this. That’s easy to do. And with one swatch I can make half a dozen covers easily.